Genealogy Goals for 2014

My 2013 goals kind of fell apart the second half of the year. Busy with client work (where I’m still behind) and planning for the conference next summer, I don’t think I kept up with any of my 2013 goals. My goals for 2014 are probably going to look similar. The one successful goal was organizing my documents. I got quite a way through sorting the records I had collected over the years. There are some left, some that need more research to verify I have the right people, some that I’m not sure what to do with, and there are still some on paper that didn’t get finished with, but I made a huge dent into those in the first half of the year that the remainder don’t feel overwhelming. Unfortunately, the IAJGS conferences got in the way.

So, what are my goals for 2014?

1. IAJGS 2014. The 2014 IAJGS Conference is going to take up the first half of the year. Plans are already underway. I have been gathering information and writing for the blog (my charge) and working with a couple of my locals. The first half of the year will see an increase in what my Utah people have to do, thus an increase in my job as well. It all culminates at the end of July. I’ll be free of it in August, when I can work on my other goals better. (This isn’t really a goal, more like a reality. But it will put a delay on the goals.)

2. Newsletters. Publish the family newsletters. The backlog. I now have to do three issues. I won’t be combining them. I was working on it a couple months ago and need to get back to it. I’d like them all done… well, I’d like them done in the past, but I’m not getting that. Can I finish one a month?

3. Russian. Continue with my Russian learning. I was doing well and just stopped. I need to get started again. It will be most interesting to see how much I’ve retained without practicing.

4. Hebrew. Learn Hebrew. I can already read the alphabet and I know a smattering of vocabulary, but the 2015 conference is in Israel. I’ll begin after the SLC conference. If my return trip to Europe comes up soon enough after the conference, I might delay until after that, since I should still be working on Russian.

5. Europe. Go back to Europe. It is definitely going to happen in 2014. After the summer. I have Trans-Carpathian work to do. And I’d like to get to Moldova this time.

6. Blogging. I’d love to keep up my blogging here better, but that might not happen until after the summer either. Catching up on my WDYTYA Nitpicker’s Guides would be a nice thing to do before that, since another season begins just before the conference. The Boston conference was badly timed at the beginning of the previous season. This may be a problem every year. My active blogging until the summer will take place over at http://blog.iajgs2014.org/.

7. Clients. Catch up and keep up with my client work. I’ve been lagging behind since the summer and it might be more frustrating for me than some of my clients who have been patiently waiting for research. I’ve been putting off any new clients for a few months, except for quick jobs. If I can get just certain work finished, I will feel better about taking on new work. Once the FHL hours are back to normal, it will be easier.

8. Research. My own research goals still stand, but they will likely continue to be on hold until August. I still have more records on paper than I’d like. I was going to digitize directly from the microfilm but did not finish. I want to write a research report for each ancestor and many other relatives. I want to do a Feldstein one name study. I want to do more research of FHL-filmed records. I keep a list of things to do, but I haven’t touched them in months.

I don’t expect to write a monthly blog post for my goals this year. Maybe I’ll return to these in August and see how I’ve done. Hopefully I’ll have finished three things (1, 2, 7) by then. Those are the most important ones to get done.